A Package from Fuji

Last week, on The Chronicles of Fuji, Mr. Fuji himself wrote a post entitled, "Appreciate the Patience." He was apologizing for the time it took him to pull cards together for people to mail out, and one of the packages on that post was addressed to me.

Similarly, I have had the best of intentions over the past several weeks to pull together packages of cards to send to people.  My execution has been lacking.  I will remedy this, however -- so please do have patience with me as well.

This is a post about the great cards I got from Fuji, though, so let's roll with those:

 

Let's start with swatches first.  These two guys used to be Brewers. McGehee went to Japan to restart his career after bouncing from the Brewers to the Pirates to the Yankees.  Now, he's hitting .309/.375/.392 for the Marlins and looking like the player he was in 2009 and 2010.  

Mat Gamel was supposed to be the guy to allow the Brewers to move Ryan Braun off third base, or to let the Brewers replace Prince Fielder at first.  As it turned out, though, Gamel tore up his knee before last season and was placed on waivers by the Brewers at the end of the year.  The Cubs picked him up for two months before they needed space on their forty-man roster, so they cut him loose in December of last year.  The Braves gave him a chance for a couple of months this past offseason to prove himself healthy, and he failed that test -- getting cut again in February after suffering yet another knee injury in his personal workouts before spring training.

That's depressing.  Let's go to happier cards.

MINI!

From the snake-bit and the exiles, we move on to the rentals and trade bait. Dave Parker was supposed to be more than just a one-year rental.  As I went into on my 1982 Topps blog, the Brewers signed Parker to show Robin Yount that the team was serious about contending in 1990.  After the 1990 season, though, the Brewers shipped Parker to the Angels in exchange for Dante Bichette.  

Greinke was traded to the Brewers by the Royals for Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress (who has since returned to the Brewers organization) and Jake Odorizzi.  When the Brewers realized they were not contending in 2012, they shipped Greinke to the Angels in exchange for a minor league pitcher (Angel Pena), Johnny Hellweg (who underwent Tommy John surgery in April), and Off Hiatus Player Collection Member Jean Segura.  

Escobar, as I mentioned, went to the Royals in the Greinke trade.  He was a major leaguer at that point, so the Brewers felt obligated to take Yuniesky Betancourt off the Royals hands to fill the spot on the field.  Thank God we got Segura the next year.

Sabathia as a Hometown Hero in 2013 for Milwaukee is kind of interesting since he spent exactly 19 games (17 regular season, 2 post-season) in Milwaukee in between 238 games for the Indians and 169 games for the Yankees.  The big fella is 33 now and still pitching reasonably well.  Despite him being a Yankee, I wish him well.

UK MINI!

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Another UK MINI!

To close out the package, Fuji flipped me some cards for my PCs.  I got two Brauns, two Molitors, a Yount, a Yovani, and a big Kentuckian.  All of these cards went right into their respective collection binders.  

And soon, those collections might be organized.  If I can just get all the trade packages put together, and then all the trade bait listed out -- then I'll get back to working on those PC lists.

It's funny how there's always plenty of work to do to keep our hobby goals moving forward.

Thanks, Mr. Fuji, for the excellent trade package.

No, not THAT Mr. Fuji!